The Latest on Legal Research

Search USA is developing a series of sites, and Architects USA ( http://www.architectsusa.com/ ) is the first. The site’s purpose is to offer an Internet directory of 30,000+ architecture firms in a format that will provide ease to the client selecting an architect.

Firms can be searched by cities, within states, or large firms (over 20 employees) and larger firms (over 100 employees) can be searched nationwide. A list of architects will give you their name, address, and phone number, and in some cases a photo of a building they’ve done. To the left of the listing are two graphic links. One is to the architect’s Web site (that’s not always available) and the other is a link to the architect’s information. The information contains a description of the architect, a profile (size of firm, types of work, styles, etc.) and contact information (address, phone and fax, and when available e-mail and Web site.)

Hate Crime Investigations Site Launched

The Anti-Defamation League has launched a Web site for law professionals investigating hate crimes. The site, at http://www.adl.org/learn/, provides a report measuring the activities of extremism in America and locations of upcoming extremist activities. Its Hate Crimes section includes hate crime laws for each state and a breakdown of hate symbols by graphic symbols, number symbols and racist acronyms. The section on Law Enforcement includes Officer Safety Information, Resources for Law Enforcement and Tips for Responding to Hate Crimes.

Web Credibility Project Launched

The Consumers Union has launched a project to measure the credibility of e-commerce sites on the Web. The first focus of the Web Credibility Project is to uncover any Web sites that may not fully reflect the connection between the site and its sponsor. Case in point: ibreathe.com appears to be a health-related site when it is actually a site operated by GlaxoSmithKline providing information on the company’s asthma medications.

A goal of the project is to target any drug companies who do not inform consumers of a drug’s potential side effects. Another goal is to encourage e commerce sites to display business addresses and phone numbers. Later this year, the group will launch a Web site, appoint an advisory board, start to work with online groups and began to recognize the currently most credible sites. Read the whole WSJ article athttp://public.wsj.com/sn/y/SB991751206218456874.html

Internet Workplace Law Radio Launched

Interactive Employment Training, Inc. and VoiceAmerica have partnered to launch an Internet based radio program. EEOnews:Workplace Law Radio, at http://www.eeonews.com/radio/, will feature employment law authorities discussing current issues. Wage and hour laws was the subject of the first broadcast on June 19th.

The URL above has the shows listed through the middle of October; topics covered include Mediating Employment Disputes, Wage-Hour Laws, and Employment Contracts. Some of the shows are hyperlinked. Click on a hyperlink and you’ll get the show topic, guest, show agenda questions, a link to submit questions or comments before the show, and a poll.

Intellectual Property Law Site

JurisNotes.com, http://www.jurisnotes.com/, focuses on the various aspects of intellectual property law, including Internet, copyright and trade secrets. The site features free access to news, articles and links to IP resources and offers subscriptions to Intellectual Property Notes. Twice weekly subscribers receive IP Notes, providing case summaries from state, as well as federal, courts. Subscription rates vary from a individual lawyer to legal firms, but the site does offer a free trial period. JurisNotes also accepts intellectual property articles from attorneys.

Highway Safety Site

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a Web site at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ that offers a truck load of information. (Get it? “Truck load?” Whee!) The section on car safety provides information on safety problems, testing results, regulations & standards and research, while the section on people safety looks at injury prevention, communications & outreach, crash information and driver performance.

In addition to news features, the page also has a list of current topics, such as crash tests and recalls. The NHTSA site also highlights the safety implications of driver distractions caused by in-vehicle technologies and a summer tire checklist you might want to review before taking off on a July 4th holiday trip.

The site is a collection of over 1000 election-related Web sites. (That doesn’t sound like a lot initially, but consider that each site has several archives made over time, and you’ll understand why over 1000 sites adds up to over 87 million pages.) They’re divided into several categories, including presidential candidate sites, political party sites, and League of Women Voters Sites.

Choose a category and you’ll get a huge list of URLs. Pick a URL and you’ll get, this time, a huge list of dates. The dates start in August 2000 and go to January 21, 2001. These are the daily copies of the archive site in which you’re interested.

Click on the date and the top page loads, complete with graphics. (Which is good — some of the graphic-heavy sites would be all but unrecognizable.) I dug through some of the sites and wasn’t able to find an unworking internal link. No, wait, I just found one. The photograph scrapbook link under the office of the First Lady. That could be because the archived version of whitehouse.gov seems to be text-only. Interesting collection; worth a look.

Google Adds New Languages, Spanish Translation Tech

Google’s added several new languages to their search engine interface as a result of their “Google in Your Language” program. You can access the new language settings at http://www.google.com/preferences . The new languages include Bengali, Hacker, Malay, Malayalam, Indonesian, Welsh, Latin, Elmer Fudd, and Pig Latin.

(I am so tempted to submit “Mr. Tudball” as a language. “Mrs-a Wiggins, I hava found no results fur yu!”)

Google’s also released a beta version of their translation service for Spanish-Speaking users. Visitors using the Spanish version of Google will find that English pages now have beside them a link to a Spanish translation.)

Sabrina is also Researcher/Author of
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